The Rising Sun in the Malory Towers
by Akasora-senpai
Summary: Tsubaki Morikawa, an exchange student from Japan, spent her first year in Malory Towers, and she had a great time. R&R!
1. Morning

_London, England._

__"Tsubaki! _Tsubaki_! Wake up! Don't you want to be late for school? Get up and get prepared now!" - I heard my mother - Professor Mizuki Morikawa - shouting in the lovely morning as I rolled between the soft sheets of my bed.

"Yes, _kaa-san_. I'm up now." - I sleepily said as I reached out to the table next to my bed to pick up my glasses. I put them on and started getting off my bed.

A few minutes later, after doing the hygiene and having a breakfast, I went to my room and changed into my new school uniform. I looked into the mirror and...

Gosh, I haven't seen anyone prettier.

The one in the mirror was no one else than Tsubaki Morikawa, but dressed in an orange school uniform. Gotta admit, I look pretty in uniforms.

"Malory Towers School does have lovely uniforms, ne?" - My mother approached me from behind as she gently combed my long, silky black hair. She then gathered it into a loose ponytail and used an orange ribbon to keep it in place.

"Alright, Tsubaki, now you can go outside. The car is already waiting. I and your dad have your luggages prepared. He will take you to the train station. I'll come along with you."

"Okay mom." - I said as I rushed outdoors.

oOo

Oops, I think I forgot to introduce myself. _Konnichiwa_. I'm Tsubaki Morikawa. My family had just moved from Japan to England recently, and today, I'll be going to the Malory Towers school. I just can't wait until I get there!

_End of chapter 1_


	2. Perfectly Nostalgic

A/N: I decided to update the story after a long time of neglecting it, so I'm sorry if the writings between the first chap and the second seem to be too different. On the car, on our way to the train station.

"Tsubaki Morikawa!" - My usual trail of thoughts were cut off by my mother's increasingly high and sharp voice. "Would you just stop sighing and tell me what's wrong?!"

Not again, mom. Why do you always have to state that there's a problem with me every time I have deep, serious thoughts? It was true that I was being nostalgic - since my father earned a new job in England half a month before this, my family just moved there and I couldn't get used to my new home just yet. I couldn't get used to living, perhaps permanently, in somewhere half-round the Earth far away from my old home. I couldn't get used to being far away from streets of Tokyo, from all of my friends, from the cherry blossom trees in the park. I couldn't get used to speak an entirely different language, to write, to read signs on the streets all written in these strange Latin letters rather than hiragana, katakana and kanji. I'll have to face these things everyday soon, I will and I have to get used to it. But right then, it was not long until those memories of the past, those soft cherry blossom petals of the past eventually turned into deadly sharp knives, fiercely and brutally stabbing, hurting, injuring my soul and my heart repeatedly and effectively, my tears started to fall from my near-sighted eyes.

Oh, nostalgia!

"Tsubaki, do I have to take you to the hospital?" - My mom asked again - in Japanese - breaking the silence. "I... Iye..." - I replied between tears, trying to hide them from the X-ray eyes of my mom.

"I'm... I'm perfectly fine, kaa-san."

Oh no. Why God, why?! Why did you put that damned word into my innocent tongue? WHY?

"'Perfectly' fine? You're 'perfectly' fine? You never use that word. Tell me the truth, Tsubaki, are you being overdramatic again?" - Her eyes gave out cold and unpleasant stares, pointing straight towards me.

See? I told you she's a monster!

Oh wait, I didn't tell you, did I?... So yeah, now I tell you that my mother, Professor Mizuki Morikawa is a witch, a monster, a youkai, a wicked scientist, anything horribly evil that you can think of. Ohh, running out of breath.

Second thought, maybe I shouldn't say that about kaa-san. She's not always like that though (I gotta admit, the food, especially the mochi she makes are the best I've ever eaten!). Haa, whatever.

"Don't be sad, Tsu-chan." - she only calls me "Tsu-chan" when she's trying to soothe me. - " Remember what I told you about the school? You'll make a lot of new friends there! It'll be so fun there that after the first year, even gold couldn't make you want to go back to Japan!"

Oh, now look who's being overdramatic.

However, those words of her, yeah, I guess were a bit effective. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how my new school would be like. It was, like, a girls' school, wasn't it?... There wouldn't be any bullies, sure... And mom said the teachers are friendly too... Worth waiting for, ne?... And then, I squeezed my brain tightly to remember what the name of the school was...

Marouri Tawaazu.

"You're expecting for that, aren't you?" - She started in Japanese. - "Don't be sad and just have fun, okay?" - but then she finished the sentence in English.

I almost bursted into laughter when I felt her "hard effort" depicted by that heavy accent and pronunciation still filled with errors; yet still sounded so adorable in a way. I, just then, realized that I had a better pronunciation than her, I can speak English without having a strange accent, so why sad?

Who said I can't use English on a daily basis?!

I didn't realize that my face just automatically striked such an idiotic-looking and awkward smile, until my mom realized it for me. She said - in Japanese, because, again, she decided to give up trying to speak "that damned Western language". She always loses to me at this - "Happy now? I don't want to see you crying anymore today. Just smile! Smile more, because that's the Tsu-chan I know and loved!"

Y'know what, my mom is not a monster.

"Aishiteru yo, kaa-san..." - I whispered.


	3. Renata Garland

I sighed for the tenth time of the day - my God! - as I took one of thousands of warm, comfy and EMPTY seats on the train. I gazed out of the window and...

Ahh!

What... what is that? Suddenly I felt... not sad... not the usual tiredness after crying either... It felt so nice, sweet and warm, so perfect...

An entire forest of full-bloom cherry blossoms behind the rectangle frame of the window. I... I couldn't believe it! I wanted to keep myself calm, but my hand didn't... It just, like, automatically reached out to the amazing image there, and then my other hand and my face...

Slam! I was pulled straight back to reality by the cold feeling of glass smashing against my cheeks, the sharp pain on the bridge of my nose caused by the pads of my glasses. My eyes widened. Aw man, there was no cherry blossom forest there... Behind the clear crystal panel were just the brown brick wall of the station and the walk, filled with girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen dressed in orange uniforms. Sighing in disappointment - that's the eleventh time. Trust me, my counting is absolutely accurate - I leaned against the back of my seat, glared at the reflection of a pretty pre-teen girl with long, dark hair, sporting the hairstyle of hime-cut - one of the strangest hairstyle on Earth in my opinion - and tied into a loose ponytail using an orange satin ribbon; wearing an orange beret with ribbons sticking out from the top of it - gotta admit, I do look cute with that thing on my head - and especially having chocolate brown eyes hiding behind oval-rectangle lenses staring back at me from the glass surface of the window. I adjusted those glasses, pushing it back in place on the bridge of my nose and watched the other girl do exactly the same - seriously, without these glasses with painfully thick lenses, I will not be the Tsubaki Morikawa that every one knows anymore...

I felt the floor, the walls, the seat and myself started shaking, and the scenery behind the window seemed to move a bit. At the same time, I found myself leaning back onto the back of the seat and started falling into a sleep...

... A few hours later, I woke up feeling myself shaking as the train was running for quite a while already. I also felt something heavy weighing against one of my shoulders, causing a mild yet irritable pain. I turned left and...

"AAAAAAHHHH!" "I'm... I'm sorry! Did I scare you?" - The girl sitting next to me - the one who slept with her head leaning against my shoulder, causing that pain - replied with her voice shaking and her eyes widened in shock and fear. She had short, curly vivid blond hair, bright sea blue eyes and a small nose. "Yes... A bit... But I'm okay." - I replied while gasping for breath.

"That's good. That's very good." - The girl replied with a wide smile on her face and making a thumb-up. "Err... Thanks..." - I replied, struggling. "Y'know what, I have a habit of leaning on people's shoulder and sleep when I travel to somewhere reaaaaaaaally far on cars, buses or trains. When I do that, people'd just pull away or wake me up immediately then call me a freak." - Said the other girl, her voice deepened towards the end.

"Even your parents?"

"Yeah. To them, I'm just a piece of trash. They only care for - and love - my older brother. They usually call me a 'stupid little bloody piece of scum'" - She said, yelling the last six words. "Just because I'm not as intelligent and polite as my brother. He's a professor! Really! He's now teaching at a university and working at an institute in Sweden, and he earns a lot of money!"

"Wow, I... I feel sorry for you. By the way, my mother is also a professor, she loves me, but she always think that I need to go to the hospital every time I'm sad!"

"Oh my God. By the way, your English is excellent, however you don't look like you're from Britain." - the girl squinted her eyes and drifted her face closer to me, looking at me as if I were a strange creature to be researched. - "You're from a different country, aren't you? My eyes can detect whether a person comes from England or not! Let's see, you're from... China I suppose?"

"Actually I'm from Japan. My family just moved to England last month."

"J... Japan?" - Her blue eyes suddenly widened, she gasped in surprise. - "My brother once went to that country and bought me a very cute doll, now I still keep it! I had no idea what 'Japan' is, I always thought that it's a country somewhere near Africa, where people were black and wear ridiculous clothes... until I started going to school and learned Geography, then I knew that the country is in East Asia, but I still didn't know how exactly the people there are like... until I meet you, a true, one-hundred percent real Japanese sitting right here in front of my eyes. I didn't know Japanese people were this pretty!" - I muttered "Thanks" between her loud words. - "Tell me, what's your name?"

"Tsubaki Morikawa." - I, being tired yet excited after listening to her loud and energetic words, spoke my full name steadily and carefully so that the girl can hear it clearly and, hopefully, pronounce it correctly. I even added: "My first name means 'Camellia'"

"Tsubaki eh? Turns out, your name is not as hard to pronounce as I thought. Say, my name is Renata Garland."

"That's a beautiful name." - I said, smiling.

"My parents don't think so. My brother told me, when my mom, Mrs. Garland gave birth to me, my parents didn't know which name to give me, so they asked for help from my uncle. He wanted to name me after his ex-girlfriend Renata. My parents just denied it right away saying that 'the name is way too bloody brutal and vulgar to give to a girl! You want our daughter to become a mafioso?! Besides, that name sounds too French, which is terrible to give to a British girl! You may name her Elise or Sophie, but that name of yours is unacceptable!" My uncle was pretty smart, he said: 'If you think you can come up with nice names then why didn't you name her at the first place instead of asking me for help? Besides, Renata is, in my opinion, a very lovely name which reminds you about the beautiful and attractive country of Italy.' My parents are, of course, way too dumb compared to my uncle so they couldn't argue, and so, from then on, I'm officially known as Renata Garland." - She paused for a short while. - "Hey, I like you already! Let's become friends! You'll be the first friend I've ever had in my whole life!"

"Deal. You're not the very first friend of mine in my entire life, but you'll be the first one I've ever had in England. Let us become best friends. Renata." - I said, smiling slightly as I held out my right little finger. - "Pinky-swear?"

"What?"

"It's like a handshake, but with our little fingers. The pinky-swear tradition originally comes from Japan, just to let you know." - My smile just grew wider and wider.

"P... Pinky-swear." - The girl replied with a little smile on her face as we twisted our little fingers together. The train was still running on its journey to the school which every British girl dreams of.

**A/N: I'm sorry if I have put your hopes up, but there's no femslash - or yuri, in Tsubaki's case - here, just friendship!**


End file.
